This version hangs in the Musée d'Orsay in Paris on the fifth floor. Besides this painting, there are three other finished versions with the same composition (one in the Metropolitan Museum de New York and the two others in private collections). There is also an oil sketch (Paris, Musée de l'Orangerie) and a pastel of the same size (private collection).
The repetition of this motif shows Renoir's interest in a subject that, moreover, he had already dealt with. We know that the painter was always dissatisfied and kept reworking his paintings, but such a concentrated effort on one and the same composition remains unique. Perhaps we should see in this his desire to offer museums a perfectly completed work.
Discover more Old Masters in the following collections: